With every great community, there are the rules and laws that ensure people coexist peacefully. These forums are no different. There are boundaries to what is and what is not allowed. These rules are in place to ensure the Winamp Forums continue to be a friendly place where members can learn and share information on a variety of computing and non-computing topics.

The rules to the Winamp Forums are as follows:

Advertising - Advertising or soliciting other members to buy, sell or peruse any products or services through this discussion forum is not permitted.
Chain letters and junk mail are also strictly prohibited. Topics/posts that contain this will be edited, locked or deleted and the guilty parties will be banned without warning.

Spamming - Topics/posts that are just complete nonsense will be deleted, at the moderators' discretion.
Advertising of commercial sites, products or services, whether in your signature, your homepage link or in your posts, is not permitted on these forums. We adhere to a strict zero-tolerance policy against all forms of unsolicited advertising. All spammers will be banned on the spot without warning!

Flaming - Material that is knowingly defamatory, illegal, abusive, threatening or harassing, is strictly prohibited. As with anything, you, as a member,
should use good common sense when posting. In other words, you agree not to be a jerk. Posts containing personal attacks on another user will be
edited/deleted.

Right to Privacy - You will not violate a person's privacy by publishing information against another member's will, information that is private and personal. If you violate this rule, your account may be automatically banned without prior warning.

Racism - Topics/posts containing such will be edited or deleted accordingly. If you violate this rule, your account may be automatically banned without prior warning.

Porn - Material that is sexually or otherwise obscene is not permitted on these forums. Topics/posts containing such will be deleted on sight. If you violate this rule, your account may be automatically banned without prior warning.

Warez - Providing or asking for information on how to illegally obtain "warez", "gamez" or any other software or work protected by copyright law is strictly forbidden. If you violate this rule, your account may be automatically banned without prior warning.

Virii, Malware and Adware - Posting links leading to virii, malware, adware, etc is forbidden. Any violation of this rule, your account will be banned without prior warning and the thread will be edited or deleted accordingly.
As a warning to our users, you should be vigilant when clicking on links and exercise the same caution as you would on other sites.

Post Pumping - If a post is suspected to serve no other purpose than to increase the post count of the poster, then the moderators may, at their discretion, issue a PM to the member in question enquiring about the nature of the post. Posts/Threads that are blatantly post pumping will be removed/locked without recourse to the poster.

Cross-posting - Posting the same question in more than one forum is not allowed. Should this occur, then only the thread in the most relevant forum will be left open; all others will be locked and subsequently deleted.

Signature Size - To keep the page loading time and visual annoyance factor down to a minimum, ensure your graphical signatures do not exceed a maximum of 12,500 pixels or 15kb file size, whichever is reached first. Alternatively, three lines of text can be used as a signature. Do not pad out your text lines with blanks lines. A line of text is defined such that it does not wrap when viewed at a resolution of 1024x768.

If these limits are exceeded then you may be contacted by a moderator requesting an amendmant to your signature. If none is made within a
reasonable period of time, then a moderator may remove your signature from your profile.

StreamRippers - Due to legal liability issues, any information or references to information about streamripping applications are strictly prohibited within these forums. Any threads/posts containing such information will be edited/deleted without warning.

What should I do if I see objectionable material on the forums? - It is important that members recognize the real-time nature of these forums; the moderators cannot always monitor the contents of posted messages. As such, we depend upon you to inform them when members are violating our rules. You must also recognize that they cannot respond immediately to such notices and that some time may pass before any warranted action is taken.

To contact a moderator use the "Report this post to a moderator" function or send a private message to one of the moderators listed in the Forum Leaders page.

What happens if I break the rules?At best your post will be edited by one of the moderators and you will be issued a warning. If the offence is more serious your post will be deleted. Posting "why was my post edited/deleted?" etc. will only make matters worse so please don't.

Should you have already been issued warnings and continue to break the rules, you will be issued a temporary ban - your posting privileges will be disabled for seven days, but you will still be able to view the forums as a guest.

For persistent and or deliberate rule-breakers your account will be "Nuked". That means you are no longer welcome on these forums and your account will no longer function. If you re-register, your new account will be nuked immediately and any new threads/posts will automatically be removed, regardless of their nature

SuggestionsIn the attempt to create a compromise where everyone is happy, the following suggestions are also recommended:

1. Use common sense. Anything that you say or do carries consequences with it. If you find yourself questioning the nature of what you.re going to post, then it.s probably not safe to post it. Save yourself trouble and ourselves time, think before you post.

2. Always be civil and courteous. This forum is visited by people from all over the world of different ages, genders, and races. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Also, see Flaming, Right to Privacy, and Racism.

3. Make sure that your message topics fit the topic description of the forum that you are posting in. This is for your own benefit - for example, a question regarding a Winamp problem will get a better (and probably quicker) response in Winamp Technical Support, than it would in General Discussions.

4. Use the search function before posting, particularly if the question is problem oriented. Most technical questions have been answered before, and solutions are freely available. Also, Tech Support Greatest Hits contains a compilation of the most commonly asked technical support questions.

5. Make sure that you have followed #1 and #4 before posting :)

6. Read the sticky threads at the top of each forum - they are there for a reason, and generally contain information relevant to the forum that they are in.

7. Don't quote the entire message that you're responding to, only the pertinent passage. This makes it easier to read for other users.

8. Only post pictures when absolutely necessary, and when they are directly relevant to the topic discussion. If the image you are posting is large in size (either pixel size, file size, or both), then please post a link to the picture instead of posting the picture itself. Remember that not everybody has the T3 connection that you are accustomed to, and may have to wait some time for images to load.

9. If you find it easier to express yourself in French, auf Deutsch, en Espanol, in Nederlands, in Italiano, or any other language, post in the International Connection forum. You'll find help and pointers in almost every language we can think of.